Opinion: Liberals Go Soft on Crime--Again

Wonder Land columnist Dan Henninger on the return of anti-security Democrats in New York City and inside the Beltway. Photo: Getty Images

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... welcome back to Opinion Journal I'm Mary Kissel we are a political people as Americans were always looking ... towards the next election and trying to figure out how the two parties are to position themselves ... well there's one female Wonderland Columnist Dan Henninger has in mind about that Democrats and he's here to talk about it and ... the Democrats historically a party that was soft on crime use either going back there ... let's start with New York ... I ... mean why is it that anybody would want to return ... to the new Ark of the seventies the eighties the nineties ... well it's a little hard to explain that Mary of it to anyone who has lived through those years which shows you know people were living in apartments ... whose stores were literally ... festooned with head of the dead bolt locks one two three ... and an iron bars against the door to him it was really in the streets were filthy in the subways were filthy sick of radio I have a car take the radio on a car ... on why ... they didn't so ... Rudolph Giuliani became error he hired Bill Bratton deepen assist aam to ... suppress crime ... of ... Mike Bloomberg has continued with that they fix the problem there could fix the problem stopping for this part of this ... bill left ... the irrepressible New York City last has decided they want to get rid of stop and Frisk and so the file the lawsuit enjoyed sure of showing one rule of earlier this week that the of the ... few that to establish a monitor ... to oversee the inner police department then she wants restrictions put on the stock price ... it's practically a prerequisite that you have to be soft on crime now to Brian for New York City ... mayor and have the chance mean what is what this change the people just forgotten that ... im ... the only New York the you just described well ... if you know younger people probably have New York is also attracting people of the recent that is attracting people ... is because it's such a civilized and peaceful place now ... I mean there are neighborhoods or formally crime ridden like Williams heard or read for Stuyvesant in Brooklyn ... of the ball re in Manhattan East Harlem that are now more Shing and and and successful full of restaurants look like on the street ... and that's were a lot of the young people who come to New York move when they have to understand ... that crime if not kept in check could come back into areas like that ... now ... I was trying to make a political point that Democrats since the mid nineteen sixties have been vulnerable to the soft on crime charge ... and is always a Republican who takes the opportunity to exploit that ... Rudy Giuliani did that in nineteen ninety four against David Bacon's ... on a Richard Nixon did against Hubert Humphrey in nineteen sixty eight Nixon ran a law and order campaign ... Democrats are very ... sensitive about that myth are pretty good job of the nesties themselves against it but on the national level student and it's not just New York this is something that you're seeing on ... in Washington ... well we're saying I think what President Obama will win is so speech to the National Defense University in May he said he wanted to start scaling back the war on terror ... and then just this week and talking about surveillance he said he wants to provide his own ... privacy ... advocate for ... of the surveillance practice he wants to talk to Congress about more transparency he was to establish an outside group in other words you write for Tyson and the war on terror as does the same area there's something in the padi and a of Liberal Democrats that all was lost a pullback ... just when they'll have a situation that working within thirty seconds left what was once before if I didn't want to pull the party back to the center to be tough on crime Hillary was to ... have the Republicans' response of this without being labelled ... warmongers ... well I think they simply have to point all the threats the imminent threat that can come from weakening these policies and yes indeed ... Hillary Clinton has worked very hard to last for of for years or so and so the centrists ... and strong on defense and she's got to be very nervous if something bad happens the next three years ... would give this opening the Republicans saying that Democrats are soft on national security ... and soft on national security soft in the big Apple ... Wonderland Columnist Dan Henninger here